[moccachino]

That's a valid point, but the removal of the physical step only serves to make the whole process even more absurd.

With gold bars at the very least you have in your hands a concentrated lump of actual material that will survive a power outage or a lost password or something.

But of course that whole process is as absurd as you point out today because gold holds residual value from when it actually was a convenient universally recognized store of value.